The Columbian Orator

The Columbian Orator is a "how to" manual for public speaking. This guidebook formally introduced Frederick Douglass to oratory through its composed speeches, dialogues, playlets, and poems. He purchased this primer for 50 cents when he was an enslaved boy coming of age in Baltimore, Maryland. Douglass spent hours walking the Baltimore streets studying and repeating its contents to devise his own style of speechmaking. This manuscript also made him even more conscious of his own personal liberty. Douglass carried this handbook with him when he escaped from slavery in 1838.

He continued to use this text as a moral compass to craft rational arguments against slavery to sound his support for others like him that were disadvantaged and disenfranchised. Douglass matured into an outstanding "universal reformer." Throughout his life, he aligned himself with men and women of all races to advocate for many progressive reform movements, including the abolition of slavery, racism, sexism, and capital punishment during much of the 1800s. Douglass's words and ideas remain sources of inspiration for millions of people around the world today.